Road death statistics in the EU (infographic)
The EU has a good record on road safety, but one person dying in a road accident is one too many. Discover road fatality figures by country, age and sex.
Road fatalities in the EU
Overall statistics
Every year thousands of people lose their lives or are seriously injured in accidents on EU roads. There were around 19,940 deaths on the roads in 2024, a decrease of 2% on the previous year. Over the last 10 years there has been a gradual decline in deaths from a high of 24,358 in 2015.
In 2020, the number of fatalities dropped sharply to 18,830 fatalities, which was attributed to COVID-19 mobility restrictions affecting passenger transport. Although fatalities increased in 2021 and 2022, they did not return to pre-pandemic levels.
Road deaths by country
Roads are the safest in Sweden (20 deaths per one million inhabitants) and Denmark (24/million), while Bulgaria (74/million) and Romania (78/million) reported the highest fatality rates in 2024.
The EU average was 45 road deaths per million inhabitants.
Road deaths by sex and age
Men accounted for over three-quarters of all the road deaths ( 77%) in 2023.
Older people, aged over 65, are among the most vulnerable groups as they represented 31% of all road deaths in 2023 (up from 28% in 2019) while they account for 21% of the population.
Similarly, young people aged 18-24 accounted for 12% of road deaths while making up only 7% of the population.
What the EU is doing to improve road safety
The Commission presented in March 2023 proposals to modernise driving licence rules and introduce EU-wide driving disqualification if one EU country decides to disqualify a driver following a serious offence.
In October 2021, Parliament approved motor insurance rules better protecting road accident victims throughout the EU.
MEPs also adopted a resolution in October 2021 on the EU Road Safety Policy Framework, in which they set out the main steps needed to reach the goal of zero deaths on European roads by 2050. Those include safe speed limits (30km/h in residential areas), zero-tolerance for drink-driving and more safety features in infrastructure and vehicles. This is in reaction to the European Commission’s proposal for an EU road safety policy for 2021-2030.
In April 2019, MEPs adopted rules to make 30 advanced safety features mandatory, such as intelligent speed assistance, driver distraction warning and emergency braking systems.
Compulsory safety technologies could help save more than 25,000 lives and avoid at least 140,000 serious injuries by 2038, given that human error is involved in about 95% of all road traffic accidents.
To make roads safer, the EU also strengthened the rules on the management of infrastructure safety and is working to ensure common rules for self-driving vehicles.
